Source: United Nations (Video News)
On the tenth anniversary of the Minsk Agreements, US representative John Kelley told the Security Council that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was “an unrealistic objective,” while musician and peace activist Roger Waters welcomed United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin talks on Ukraine as “a move in the right direction.”
Briefing Council members on the situation in Ukraine, Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia, and the Americas Miroslav Jenča said the ten-year anniversary of the Minsk Agreements has taught us that “agreeing on the ceasefire or the signing of an agreement alone do not ensure a durable end to the violence,” and “ensuring that the conflict does not reoccur and does not escalate will require genuine, genuine political will and understanding of its multidimensional complexity for Ukraine and for the region.”
Waters expressed hope that, “maybe there is a glimmer of light at the end of this dark tunnel of war. It’s come three years and hundreds of thousands of priceless lives too late.”
Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya told the Council that “the Minsk agreements were something which the Western sponsors of the Kiev regime needed purely as a smokescreen to provide armaments to Ukraine and to prepare it for war with Russia.”
Nebenzya said, “had the Minsk agreements been implemented in good faith by Ukraine and its sponsors, there would have been nothing, nothing of what subsequently transpired would have occurred.”
The Russian Ambassador said, “diplomacy has finally been actively brought into the game. And opportunities have emerged for the prompt end to the hot phase of the Ukrainian crisis,” and referring to the Minsk Agreements said, “what lessons do the present negotiators need to draw from the process which so abjectly failed three years ago?”
The US representative, for his part said, “we want a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine, but we must start by recognizing and then returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering. A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure the war will not begin again. This must not be Minsk 3.0.”
UK representative Barbara Woodward said, “the conditions for a just and lasting peace which protects Ukraine’s security, sovereignty and independence” must be create, and stressed that “Ukraine’s voice must be at the heart of any negotiations.”
Ukraine’s representative Khrystyna Hayovyshyn said, “weak agreements will not bring real peace, they will only lead to the greater war. That is why we are working with our partners to find strong and effective solutions. Peace cannot be bought, especially not at the expense of law and principles, especially principle of territorial integrity and sovereign equality. This cannot be replaced with appeasement. History offers many relevant examples. Our task is to avoid repeating past mistakes, as the cost of those mistakes is more blood, suffering and destruction.”
Today’s meeting coincided with the tenth anniversary of resolution 2202, which endorsed the now-defunct Minsk agreements of 2015 signed by the representatives of European security pact, the OSCE, Russia, Ukraine and leaders of the pro-Russian separatists in the occupied east of Ukraine following Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
The unanimously adopted resolution included a package of measures as its annex, including an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, as well as the withdrawal of all heavy weapons by both sides by equal distances to create a security zone.